


Paleblood:  Sanctuary

by resplendentCaballer



Series: Paleblood & Related Works [2]
Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 22:55:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18353414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resplendentCaballer/pseuds/resplendentCaballer
Summary: A collection of one-shots that tie into the main work but don't quite fit.





	Paleblood:  Sanctuary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Memories of Sabien.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lumnia is very gay and it's all I can think about. You should probably be caught up to chapter 14 of Paleblood before reading this.
> 
> Put this on loop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOcbMA72cQo

The lecturer droned on, many of the other students having long checked out in terms of attention in the brightly lit hall.  Some turned to reading their own texts, some half-paid attention, some re-read over their notes and tried to determine if it would all be important.  But me, I paid attention, even to information I’d heard before; the fact that I had already learned it did not make it any less fascinating. Dutifully, I scribbled down notes and copied diagrams into my journal.  This lecturer may have been repeating knowledge we’d heard before, but every so often he gave his own valuable insight -- small sparkles of perspective that I knew I’d have to corner him and ask about after class.

A first-hand perspective on the corpses from the hamlet on the coast, when they were still alive -- this would truly be invaluable.

A sound, a soft huff of amusement came from my left.  It stopped my frantic writing in its tracks. I peeked over at my lab partner, who had her cheek propped up on her fist, looking at me with this sly smirk on her face.  Something that could be fondness shown out of her sparkling blue eyes, something that my mind refused to even begin to process.

All the breath left my lungs.  It took me a moment to recover as my heart left me and returned.  With a huff of my own, I flipped my notebook to fresh page and scribbled a note.

_‘Something funny?’_

I shoved the notebook over at her which she acknowledged by flicking her gaze downward, but then she returned her eyes to me.  Sabien considered a moment, then bit her smiling pink lips and very deliberately picked up her pen.

She wrote beneath my question in her smooth, rounded handwriting, in contrast against my sharp scrawl, and then slid it back to me, amusement still on her face.

_‘Why are you so excited for a lecture we’ve heard before?’_

I looked up from her note and gave her a tired expression.  I wrote back.

_‘I appreciate Prof. Umbren’s insights.’_

When Sabien saw that one, she rolled her eyes and gave me a look of disbelief before responding.

_‘Like grains of sand in a pile of mud.  Worth nothing, and not worth the shit you have to dig through to get to it.’_

I must’ve looked silly.  A tenseness balled in my gut.  I wouldn’t argue with Sabien, but I wish…

_‘I think all knowledge is worth something, regardless of the cost.’_

She looked at that response, seeming to consider how to craft her own.  There was a wry smile, a bit of worrying at her lower lip, and then her quill pressed to the paper and she wrote two words.

_‘You’re cute.’_

I snatched the notebook away and flipped again to a new page, lowering my head over the paper to hide the bright red embarrassment on my cheeks.

To my left, I heard Sabien barely stifle a laugh.

* * *

 

Sitting on a blanket, I watched Sabien futz around in the reeds.  She’d stripped off most of her robes, leaving only the lowest layer before one would expose their underclothes.  She was wreathed in sunlight, a being from the divine, a glorious idol.

Sunlight really did her no favors.  Sabien’s complexion was incredibly pale, her hair pure white from some mysterious circumstance.  The white sleeves of her dress shirt were soaked through and she’d certainly tripped enough times in the past for me to know how the cotton hugged her torso in ways I could not.

I nibbled on my sandwich and allowed myself to indulge.

The lakeside near Byrgenwerth looked lovely all times of day, but its beauty could never compare to the girl standing at the shoreline.  Sabien’s form was tiny -- enough so that I sometimes had to pester her to eat, though much of that tininess simply came from her lack of height.  Thin, not much chest, a firm, round posterior that my eyes perhaps lingered too long on most days.

We were far enough down the shore that it was unlikely other students would bother us here.  Sabien shouted in triumph and dropped another leech into her mason jar. The leeches were for her experiments, a special study that she’d been conducting on her own with only the materials readily available to students.  By Sabien’s word, she claimed that she was conducting the study with these limitations to prove that she doesn’t need the help of her grandfather to be a good researcher, but I think she’d just gotten sick of asking the Provost for things.

“How many do you have now,” I called over.

There was a splash and Sabien swore.  “Not enough!”

I refused to laugh at her.  “It could go easier if you let me help, you know.”

“No,” came her petulant response, “I’ve got to do it myself!”

I laughed despite myself.  “Then you will suffer the difficulties on your own.  If you fall and break something, we’ll just have to leave you there.  I’m certainly not going into that filthy water.”

“Lumnia, you _smug bitch_ ,” she hissed from the reeds in good spirits, only to be cut off by a larger splash.  The kind of splash I recognized as meaning she fell in.

After a moment, Sabien stomped out of the reeds, soaked to the bone.  Her hair hung tangled over her face and she clutched a glass jar full of wriggling black creatures.  I could see the grumpy scowl on her face as she squelched over to me and plopped down on the blanket, soaking wet.

She held a squirming leech up to my face, pinched between her fingers.  “He wants to give you a kiss.”

I did not flinch.  I looked up at the leech and pursed my lips.  “How forward, sir, you should know I am married to my studies.”

Sabien cackled and dropped the leech into the jar, but didn’t seal it.  A beat of silence passed as she stared at the jar.

“What is it,” I asked.

“I have them on me,” Sabien said with a sort of defeated amusement as she started to unbutton her shirt.  “Help me get them?”

I scoffed, ignoring the heat rising in my cheeks again.  “You need to be more careful.”

She shed her dress shirt, tossing it onto the blanket.  She plopped down in front of me, getting the ones she could see and leaving her back to me.

I wish I saw this more often, the pale plane of her flesh, the subtle ridges of her spine.  Reaching, I plucked a leech from her back, feeling the kiss of its teeth coming loose from her skin.  Unceremoniously, I dropped the offensive creature into the jar, watching blood start to ooze from the wound.

I tore my eyes away.

The next leech was on the back of her neck.  I pulled that one free, too, hearing her hiss.  I stared at the ring of red where it had latched on and in my mind’s eye, I leaned in and pressed my lips against that wound, chasing away the sting with my tongue.  Perhaps I’d continue, sucking my own marks into that pale flesh, enough to outnumber the leeches.

I could have her on this blanket, by the lakeshore, I could run my hands over her body and have her gasping my name into the grass, writhing against me more needily than those leeches squirmed for blood.  I wanted nothing more. I needed nothing more.

I dropped the leech into the jar.

“Got them all?”

My tongue flicked out to wet my lips before I could speak, my mouth having gone dry.  “Yes, that seems like all of them.”

* * *

  


“Are you coming to the lakeshore with me again?”

I paused, looking up from my book.  “I don’t think I can today. I need to study for the exam.”

Sabien nodded.  “That’s a good idea, though.  You’ve been struggling with that material.”

I didn’t think any response was needed, so I returned my attention to the text when I felt a warm body press up against the back of the chair.

“See you at class, Lums.”  Sabien leaned forward and pressed a kiss to my cheek before vanishing out the door.

My heart had vanished.  Snatched and stolen from me and held securely in Sabien’s hand.

She hadn’t given me time to respond.  I sat there, dumbfounded, hand over my cheek, staring at words that no longer made sense.

Sabien kissed me.

Carefully, I turned the pages of my notebook back to a page I often visited.  My fingers traced the letters formed by Sabien’s careful handwriting.

_‘You’re cute.’_

I ran my fingertip over the curve of the ‘c’ and tried to keep my breathing steady.

Could… Sabien share my feelings?  She found me cute. She…

She…

I should confess.  Would she be repulsed to know how I looked at her?  Or would she take me into her arms? But… even deeper than that, would she hear how I enjoyed every waking moment with her, how her smile made my heart forget its beat, and would she return that?  

Any hope of studying was gone.  It would be too suspect to chase after her, and I did need to study.

I tucked all thoughts of confession into the back of my head and directed my focus at my textbook.  I couldn’t waste all this time.

Listened for the bell in anticipation, as we had our next class together and when the bell did ring, I lingered outside the door to the lecture hall.

Could my heart take seeing her?  I didn’t trust my lungs. My sweaty palms were traitors.

After a minute of building my courage, I pushed open the door to the lecture hall.

My eyes fell on her empty seat.

I took my spot and waited the whole lecture, but Sabien did not appear.

It wasn’t until dinnertime that a couple who had gone to the lakeshore to have some privacy returned and started a fuss.  I’d returned to studying so I only heard the shouting.

I looked out the window, scowling in disdain for the noise, but then I saw her.

Two male students carrying a damp, limp form between them, blood and bone jutting out from the body’s leg.

I didn’t leave the dormitory.  Time stopped existing correctly.  At some point in my fugue, I overheard someone talking in whispers about what happened.  From how they’d found her, barely floating in the water and covered in leeches, she’d gotten her leg tied up in some roots and slipped hard enough to suffer a compound fracture and then fallen at just the wrong angle to slam her head into a rock.  What killed her, they really couldn’t say, whether it was the fall or the bloodloss.

Would things have been different, if I’d been there?  If I’d taken my textbook with me and sat on that shoreline, would Sabien have survived?  Or would I have just watched her die?

I still wanted to confess my feelings.

* * *

 

I woke one night with feverish need, hearing voices and seeing specters.

They quieted when I kneeled at her grave.

“You are everything, Sabien,” I confessed to the freshly unearthed soil.  “My everything.”

She didn’t respond.

She probably couldn’t hear me through all this dirt.

The gravedigger left his shovel.

I took it in hand and dug.

* * *

 

_Our last night together, she’d somehow stopped seeming so rotted, and I combed her white hair gently, somewhat confused that no strands were coming loose readily when they did before.  I’d been aware I was sick. I knew this whole escapade was sickness, so I assumed perhaps I’d developed a fever again and began to see spectres. It was that night that moonlight permeated her.  I thought it a creation of my own sickened mind, conjured by the presence of the moon lingering overhead, looming like a boulder over our shoulders._

_That night, it had gone dark, a cloud blocking out the light, perhaps, but my addled mind blacked out for several moments, and when my eyes worked again, Sabien’s hand had closed around my wrist, cold and damp as the scent of the moon choked the air around us.  No words came from my mouth as she lifted my hand from her head and sat up, silent. I sat frozen, astride her lap with the comb held tightly in my fingers, stiff from shock._

* * *

 

Twenty-seven years passed.  I grew older.

Surrounded by gravestones and moonflowers, I stared at Sabien’s corpse.  A young man followed a step behind her, but it didn’t matter. My heart stopped in my chest.

Sabien hadn’t aged a day.  A thick layer of bandages covered her eyes, but I could tell that the years hadn’t touched her one bit.  She was every bit the beauty I fell in love with, all those years ago. The girl who drove me mad with mourning.

Sabien’s corpse frowned, an expression of confusion.  After a moment of considering me, the corpse talked with the Doll and gave instructions to the boy, ignoring me.

After a time, the boy went into the chapel, leaving me alone with Sabien and the doll.

Sabien’s frown intensified.  “Why did we bring this here?”  It spoke with her voice but none of her joy, a deadpan, inexpressive tone.

The Doll responded. “This is a backup.  She is willing.”

The thing piloting Sabien’s corpse leaned heavily on a threaded cane, favoring her left leg.  The break must’ve never healed quite properly. “Why would we need a backup,” she demanded, almost a hiss, as if the mere concept offended her.

“You put too much stock in our first success.  When this endeavor fails, we won’t have to scrounge for another worthy human.”  There was a bite of bitterness in the Doll’s voice.

“ _My_ success,” Oedon’s Will hissed, lurching forward like she wanted to attack.  “ _You_ had no part in this.”

The Doll made a sound of disgust, soft and delicate.  “I see now why Gehrman calls us a beast.”

“Let the old man go,” Sabien’s corpse responded, teeth bared.  “You’re too attached. We have Lael now.”

“Perhaps you are becoming too much like them,” the Doll commented, thoughtful.

The tension became too much.  I spoke up to make it snap. “You are called Aydan?”

She froze in her anger and her eyeless gaze turned vaguely in my direction.  There was some passing consideration, and she must’ve decided I wasn’t a complete waste of her time.  “You’re the intruder from the clinic. I felt you there. Dangerous thing, you.”

I stepped forward holding out my hand.  “We’ve met before, actually. My name is Lumnia.”

Aydan hesitated, but she shifted and took my hand, giving it an uneasy shake.  “Did we run into each other in the city?”

“When you awoke at Byrgenwerth.”

“When I--” Aydan inhaled.  Did Sabien’s lungs still work?  Her hands were warm to the touch.  “I have no recollection. Perhaps an apt comparison:  do you remember every ant you avoid stepping on?”

Just hearing her speak to me made me feel like a teenager again with that nervous fluttering heart in my chest.  I clasped her hand between mine. “It matters not. I wanted to thank you, though. You’ve taken wonderful care of her body.”

Aydan didn’t respond, but her lips pursed slightly in confusion.

I must not have been making myself clear.  Her hand still clasped in mine, I dropped to my knees in front of her and spoke softly, fervently.  “My Goddess Oedon, I will do whatever you need of me. I am eternally thankful for the service you’ve already done for me.  Whatever I can give of myself, it is yours.”

A man cleared his throat and the attention that had been fixed on me shot upwards to the young man standing at the entrance to the workshop.

Aydan snatched her hand away and walked past me as if I was not there.

I turned my gaze to the boy, unable to contain the jealousy from showing on my face.

The boy, Lael, looked back at me as Aydan tucked herself under his arm.

“Does he know,” I asked, my chin held in the air.

The Doll shook her head.

I smiled.  At least I had one thing over the boy.  I knew what she was.

And until it all fell apart, that would be enough.


End file.
